3-021-253 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

New overland route to India: Mont Cenis Railway - L'Echelle du Diable, 1869. Engraving from a sketch '...by our Special Artist who has been commissioned to go along the whole line of the New Overland Route and the Suez Canal, and to furnish a series of Illustrations of its scenery and engineering works...[The illustration shows] the Echelle du Diable, or Devil's Ladder, on the Italian side of Mont Cenis, just below Grande Croix...The railway itself leaves the Devil's Ladder, as the zigzag over this wild mass of rock is called, and takes the line which the road first took when Napoleon's engineers planned it, but which was given up on account of the snow coming down in avalanches, and the Echelle du Diable was then laid out. To protect the railway here from these avalanches, strong galleries have been constructed all along the steep sides of the mountain, so that the road is now perfectly safe. Near the top the line is open, and the train can be seen puffing fast up the rocky heights. At the foot of the zigzag lie the remains of one or two diligences which have broken down; there is one on a sledge in the foreground; and our Artist has also introduced a diligence on the road, drawn by twelve horses'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.